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Text description provided by the architects. Puukuokka is the first eight-story heigh wooden apartment building in Finland. Developed in collaboration with Lakea, it is an energy-efficient trio of multi-story timber-framed flats in the Jyväskylä suburb of Kuokkala, neighboring the Kuokkala church also designed by OOPEAA.

Site Plan

With the completion of Puukuokka Three, the energy-efficient and ecological trio of multi-story wooden apartment buildings forming the Puukuokka Block is now complete.The Puukuokka housing has been extremely well received by the residents who praise it for creating a comfortable living environment with an excellent framework for a friendly and socially stable neighborhood.

The Puukuokka complex offers homes for 184 households from single dwellers of all ages to families with children. Finished in 2015, Puukuokka One was the first eight-story high wooden apartment building in Finland. Puukuokka Two was completed in 2017, and Puukuokka Three in August 2018.

Puukuokka explores the potential of modular prefabricated CLT construction to provide environmentally responsible and affordable housing of high quality. Puukuokka attempts to make the best possible use of the technical and aesthetic qualities of CLT and to create a wooden building in large scale with a distinct architectonic expression of its own. The block also pilots an innovative lease-to-own financing strategy that aims to support social sustainability by promoting stable communities.

Axonometric

Puukuokka served as a pilot case to develop and test a CLT based system of volumetric modules. The entire load bearing structure and frame of the Puukuokka buildings is made of massive wood and composed of prefabricated volumetric CLT modules. Each apartment is composed of two modules, one housing the living room, the balcony and the bedroom, the other housing the bathroom, the kitchen and the foyer area.

The block structure combines the sense of privacy of single-family dwellings with the semi-public character of the shared spaces of an apartment building. The vision is to provide the residents with a functional space that is rich in experiential qualities. The three buildings come together to form a block that complements the Kuokkala neighborhood in Jyväskylä, Finland. It puts an emphasis on the connection between the city and the surrounding natural landscape of hills and the lake. Together with the adjacent Kuokkala Church designed by OOPEAA in 2010 it forms a focal point for the neighborhood.

Working with CLT enabled several important aspects in the project: It made it possible to create a spacious hallway and atrium space with a lot of light realized in an energy efficient manner as a semi-warm space. The insulating qualities of massive wood allow for controlling the temperature of the individual units independently. The use of prefabricated volumetric CLT modules made it possible to integrate the piping for heat, water, electricity and ventilation in the wall structure in the hallway making it easily accessible for maintenance. This arrangement also allows for an efficient organization of the plan.

The CLT modules are prefabricated in a local factory less than two hours away from the site. The use of prefabricated modules made it possible to cut the construction time on site down to six months per building and to reduce the exposure to weather conditions making it possible to achieve a higher quality in the end result.